Campground Etiquette

[mklawz]

Am I the only one annoyed by barking/yapping dogs while camping?  We just got back from a weekend trip and I was looking for a thread to rant about this (as it's something that has always bothered me) and this is the closest related thread.

I have nothing against dogs, just the owners who don't shut them up.   I know a lot of people enjoy camping with their dogs, and I know there are a lot of good dogs and owners out there, so this is sure to cause a stir.  But really, a barking dog is just noise, plain and simple.  And a very unpleasant noise at that.    

This not only applies to campers but also neighbors in the place of residence as well.  I mean, what is it with these dog owners?  Do they not hear their own dogs yapping?  Or do they not realize that others may not want to listen to it?

Someone please help me understand the thought process of inconsiderate dog owners.

[CajunCamper]

We have been fortunate that our two dogs that we have brought camping with us over the years, were not nervous dogs and didn't bark at all in the campgrounds. Had they been a disturbance to others and to ourselves by barking while camping, they would have founds themselves being left out of the camping trips. Last Thanksgiving we were camping in Arkansas in a beautiful campground, but the Motorhome across the street from us had two little poodles that would climb up on the dashboard of the motorhome and bark everytime got near the street. You're right, barking dogs in a campground are nothing more than noise.

CajunCamper

[ColemanCampingFamily]

Am I the only one annoyed by barking/yapping dogs while camping?  We just got back from a weekend trip and I was looking for a thread to rant about this (as it's something that has always bothered me) and this is the closest related thread.

I have nothing against dogs, just the owners who don't shut them up.   I know a lot of people enjoy camping with their dogs, and I know there are a lot of good dogs and owners out there, so this is sure to cause a stir.  But really, a barking dog is just noise, plain and simple.  And a very unpleasant noise at that.    

This not only applies to campers but also neighbors in the place of residence as well.  I mean, what is it with these dog owners?  Do they not hear their own dogs yapping?  Or do they not realize that others may not want to listen to it?

Someone please help me understand the thought process of inconsiderate dog owners.

We used to take our dog (mini dachsund) camping until one weekend a few summers ago. Naturally, she is a "yapper" and barks everytime the wind blows the leaves on the trees. I don't know why I thought she would behave, but nonetheless she didn't. We hadn't been at the site long, and were still setting up when a woman comes over and very rudely, I might add, tells us that "she did not come up here to hear my dog bark". Of course, her attitude made me get an attitude and I told her I couldn't help it if the dog barked. HOWEVER, my husband and I grabbed the dog and took her into the tent to shut her up. I told my husband that we might have to put her in the car if she kept it up. To make this long story short, once we were all set up and had the time to pay attention to her, she was quiet. And if the woman had been NICE, I probably would have felt real bad. Needless to say, the pooch hasn't been camping since!!

Memorial Day weekend we had to deal with a yelping hound about 4 sites away. I couldn't stand it, and finally understood why the woman was annoyed. Unfortunately, I didn't have the nerve to say anything to the owners, and just dealth with the noise. Never again!!

__________________

DW (69)  :usflag:
DH (67)  :!
DS (00)  :J

1985 Coleman Aspen AKA "Patches"

[broseyj]

As a new user, I was just perusing the forums anc came across this one addressing one of my pet peeves!!  Great to here everyone's insights.  One thing my husband and I have discussed is how you can be sitting in your own campsite with several other campsites around you and not here a thing.  But there is sometimes just 1 site where I can sit and listen to their whole conversation - seems some people's voices just carry more than others.  I can't hear the neighbor's but I can here the entire conversation of the pair 3 sites down.  I do believe some people don't know the difference between "inside" and "outside" voices.  Must have never had that problem with their kids - or never had any kids!  Anyway, it's not that they are being purposefully loud, their voices just seem to carry and they use the same voices late at night that they do during the day.  

To follow up on some other replies:  We have dry camping in PA state parks as well, and noise is not usually a problem because if you have booze along, you want to be quiet so as not to "expose" yourself to the rangers.  But while camping in VA, where they actually sell beer and wine in the camp stores, we had a noisy neighbor set up across from us.  They were drinking and talking, and singing loudly, late into the night.  Around midnight, my husband had enough and "politely" walked over to them and explained that is was late and others were trying to sleep, could they please keep it down?  The answer was "OH sure - no problem.  Sorry about that".  My hubby came back to bed satisfied that is was taken care of.  It did seem so for about 2 hours, when suddenly loud hollering woke us up.  The 2 were still out there and were now drunker and even louder, and hollering "IS THIS QUIET ENOUGH FOR YOU?? and then performing wolf calls or whatever.  At that point my hubby decided to leave it alone...  weren't too sure at this point whether we wanted to make an issue of it.  However, in the morning, 2 other neighbors thanked us.  Meanwhile hubby saw the ranger and reported it to them as we didn't want it to happen again.  The ranger was very nice and gave us the 800 number we could use if it ever happened again, but he did ask the campers to leave that day.  They left without incident except to loudly proclaim several times "If I had a problem with someone I would have went to them with the problem instead of reporting it to the ranger".  Guess they forgot about our midnight visit to their campsite.  Anyway from that point on we always take a supply of disposable ear plugs with us, just in case!!!

Also agree with the replies about barking dogs.
 :mad:

[CajunCamper]

Thought i would bring this post back to see if anyone else has anything to add.

CajunCamper

[austinado16]

Definately the rude behavior is a pet peeve of mine too.  To me, it's simply a sign of the times.  I live in a college town and "we" the actual residents here, spend 9mos out of the year babysitting the spoiled "f*ck you" generation of 18-24 year olds who are dropped off in our city each year by their "I'm so f*cking great" parents.  But I digress.

A couple things come to mind:
1) If the camp host or Park Rangers allow the behavior to go unchecked, then the behavior not only continues, but it attracks more "like" behavior.  

2) There's no reasoning with people who have been drinking....no matter how much they have, or haven't had to drink.  Confronting them, even politely and earnestly just sets you up for potential payback later on when the situation worsens and you do finally call the Ranger or Host.  Then everyone knows who the rat was, and you spend the remainder of your time with a target on your back.

3) There shouldn't be "Loud & Obnoxious" camping areas and "Respecting the wilderness" camping areas.  In my mind, if you come to camp, you come to respect nature and in so doing, other campers.  If you want to party, stay home and cr@p in your own back yard........because I didn't drive umpteen hundred miles to listen to your music, your V-8, your drunk girlfriend and her drunk girlfriends, or you and your buddies hooting and holering and MF-ing the world.

4) People with barking dogs should be asked to leave.  Period.  I'm a dog lover and you don't hear mine.  I don't want to hear yours.  So don't bring it if you have no control over it.  Again, this is were the Host and Park Rangers need to step up.

5) Quiet hours should be inforced.  At 10pm the Host and/or Rangers should simply make rounds and shut anyone down who's up making noise.  If people don't like that, they should stay home.

It's all about taking back what is "ours."  I'll give an example.  Our city was the first in the nation (as far as I know) to enact "no smoking in restaurant" laws.  People freaked out........the ones who smoked that is.  The rest of us said, "It's about time."  Then we enacted, "no smoking in public building/businesses" laws and again, people freaked.  Now we even have no smoking on beaches.  Guess what?  This has become a fantastic place to live.  Imagine that, living where you're not choking on cigarette smoke.  You don't realize what an amazing thing it is, until you go visit somewhere where smokers are still allowed to smoke where ever they want...and then you think, wow, how do people live like this.

So same goes with camping, and the fish rots from the head down.  When the people in charge of the CG's start to take charge, things will change for the better.

In the meantime, keep me up late, and I'll be sure to get you up reaaaaaaaal early......and hung-over at 6am is no time to be listening to me.  Just ask my next door neighbors how they like my lawn mower being left running next to their bedroom windows with the safety handle strapped down and just sitting there running and running.

[GeneF]

Thought i would bring this post back to see if anyone else has anything to add.

CajunCamper

The ones that bug me are the people who leave their dogs in their camper and take off for the day proclaiming that their dog never barks.  Of course they don't because they are not around to hear them.  Plus they are only breaking one of the basic rules of camping, Children and pets must not be left alone.

I do not mean for this to sound snobby but I am snowbirding in a cg for three months.  This is my third year in this cg.  There has not been any issue with the regulars in all this time.

Howsomever, once the end of March and the start of April comes, the feeling of the entire campground changes.  More transit people come in and some of them are great and others just ruin the whole ambiance of the place.  Noise level increases, bathrooms are a mess, screaming people, doors slamming, etc.

I think the difference is that for those of us who are here for one to six months, this is our community and people respect each other.

However some people that are only here for a couple of days simply feel that since they paid the campsite fee, they can do as they please.  And this applies to people in all kinds of rigs, from popups to class A's.

I had my worst experience ever camping last year with a family that came in a tt.  They simply had no respect for anyone or anybody and they were in the site next to me.  13 year old boy deliberately stepped in front of my truck at night.  When I hollered at the kid, the mother was all over my case.  I think this family needed some couch time.

[CajunCamper]

Austinado16 and GeneF I would welcome you as my camping neighbor anytime.


CajunCamper

[Hoagie]

Austinado16 ,

I like the lawnmower idea. Too funny.

Once we were camping in Central California. We were in one of the nearest, easiest-to-get-to, inexpensive campgrounds to a number of colleges and universities. The last weekend we were there a group of kids pulls in with more vehicles than are supposed to be allowed per site. Maybe they paid for more sites and didn't use them. Or maybe some of them paid "day-use" fees and then just jammed onto the site.

First the boom-boxes started up. Then the "M-Fing" this" and "M-Fing" that. Lot's of beer being consumed, you could tell by the frequent sound of the beer bottles breaking in the firepit. Some of the young ladies would shame any responsible parent with their behavior and dress. Pretty disgusting.

We tried visiting them and asking them to tone it down. Got the "What's your M-Fing problem, dude?" response. Reported it to the "rangers." They informed us that we needed to call the county sheriffs. Not sure why the rangers couldn't call. Different union maybe? Sheriffs came out and gave them a warning, but they started up louder and nastier within 30 minutes of the deputies departing. We finally got to sleep with the use of ear plugs.

Next morning all was quiet over there. (This was about 7:30am, just before quiet time ended.) Now, the night before one of the big, modified, lifted monster pickups had an alarm that kept going off. Seemed to go off if the wind blew. One of the guys in our group snuck over to their camp and rigged up a stick under this truck that would fly up and hit the undercarriage every time he tugged on a long length of fishing line. You can imagine the fun we had as we proceeded to set that alarm off repeatedly, blasting through their beer-soaked hangovers. Every time one of them would stumble out, look around to see what had set it off, reset it and go back into his tent. Wait 5 minutes and tug on that line again. Kept this up for quite a while until we finally got bored with it. It was our last morning so we had to pack up and leave anyway. Still made for a very funny way to end the week, which had been pleasant until this group showed up and ruined the last weekend.

Funny thing was the CG had a rule about car alarms. The rangers came over did warn them about that.

[austinado16]

One of my best early morning "get evens" was at a CG in Oregon, tent camping.  When we pulled in, we discovered the site next to ours had our picknic table.  So my GF and I dragged it back over into our site.  There was no one in the other site at the time, but it was occupied.

About midnight, in rolled the drunk occupants of that adjacent site.  "Where's the m-fing table? Oh, I found it, these m-fer's over here took it from us.  Hey m-fer's, that's our table!"  and on and on they went into the night.  It was so bad with their bs and threats, that I strung a line around our tent area and hung some cans with rocks in them, so I'd hear them coming if they decided to pull something.

The next morning I was up at about 6am.  I pushed my VW Rabbit diesel in my site backwards, and all the way up against the bushes near their tents.  Then I got in and fired it up.  Mind you, this was back in the day of real diesel fuel, not this eco friendly cr@p we have now.  I left the cold start lever "off" and let the engine just sit there running rough and smoking like a fog machine in a disco-tech.  That and the noise of a clattering diesel being repeatedly revved soon rousted my new found friends.  Loved watching them stagger out of their tents, hung over and on 3hrs sleep..... and into the cloud of grey diesel smoke.

[AustinBoston]

One evening, in a small campground (just 4 sites!) on the shores of a lake, we heard the houling of a pack of wolves on the other side of the lake.

The campers a few sites down, plugged into their DVD player, didn't hear them; there was no way they could.

That was enough revenge for me.

Austin

P.S. - I said nothing.

[sacrawf]

Thought i would bring this post back to see if anyone else has anything to add.

CajunCamper

Yes, light pollution.  Just as much we would like to hear nature, we would like to see it.  A string of Christmas-tree bulb strength tacky lights are just fine, but rope lights wound around the entire camper and campsite floodlights, flashing flags and color-shifting lighted ball ornaments, neon palm trees, dozens of tiki-torches, and patriotic "chase lights"  make the campground look more like the State Fair than a campground. It's a shame that it is easier to gaze at thg stars at home than at the campground.  While campground or park rules address the loud and drunken all-night partiers, I haven't seen any rules about the lighting.  Even the campground host at one park was one of the worst offenders.

[AZsix]

We have been lucky and really haven't encountered any problem campers. There are times when we go with our friends into the desert where they all ride their quads and we do stay up late sometimes drinking and sitting around the campfire but we are not loud. Even if we were, we are in the middle of the desert with no one around. The places we camp are not party places and are mostly families and retired people that are full timers. The last time we went camping I was actually amazed at how early everyone else in the cg was in bed.

I agree with the statement that most campers are good decent people and will adjust their behavior if the know it's is a bother to other campers.

[CajunCamper]

Yes, light pollution.  Just as much we would like to hear nature, we would like to see it.  A string of Christmas-tree bulb strength tacky lights are just fine, but rope lights wound around the entire camper and campsite floodlights, flashing flags and color-shifting lighted ball ornaments, neon palm trees, dozens of tiki-torches, and patriotic "chase lights"  make the campground look more like the State Fair than a campground. It's a shame that it is easier to gaze at thg stars at home than at the campground.  While campground or park rules address the loud and drunken all-night partiers, I haven't seen any rules about the lighting.  Even the campground host at one park was one of the worst offenders.

I'm with you on that. I don't understand why people plug in those stupid flood lights in a campground, it makes no sense to me.

CajunCamper